Part I: the sex and gender context of the series I grew up in a time when sex and gender were two easily distinguished concepts: sex was a biological term that assumed all mammals, including humans, fell into one of two separate categories: male or female. Males could be identified at birth by being born with a penis; females by being born with a vagina. If anybody wanted to explore further, they could define male and female on the basis of hormones and/or chromosomal patterns. This distinction applied in 98.3% of births. In 1.7% of the cases, there was some ambiguity.
In contrast to sex, the biological category, there was gender, a sociological category. Gender was defined as the norms of behavior in any given society, and the roles males and females were expected to play. When I went to high school, for example, all the boys had a class called "shop" where we learned to operate machinery and use construction tools, and all the girls had a class where they learned to cook and sew. Things were neat and clean, in other words, in terms of sex and gender.
When it came to sexuality, and it became clear that some people had same-sex attractions, we began to hear more and more of the term homosexuality. My first encounter with the word was when somebody explained to me that "homos" - meaning male homosexuals - were men who wanted to be women. And that meant that there had to be another category - lesbians - or "women who wanted to be men." Another word in common usage to refer to both male and female homosexuals was queer.
Complications quickly set in. What about people who were attracted to both sexes? We called them bisexuals. The English language had to adapt to the quickly changing terms in common use. Just as nigger became taboo and was replaced by Negro, or colored, and then black, and then Afro-American and then African-American, homo, the disparaging word at the level of colored, was replaced by gay - at least by people who defined themselves that way. After a time, women began to prefer the term lesbian, as opposed to gay and homo, terms that made people think first of males, and women were often invisible. In time, lesbians and gays developed a political consciousness, and the term LGBT came into being - for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals - sometimes augmented by Q for queer, once a synonym for homo, now drummed into service to cover the broad category of people who resisted being put into boxes of categories. For some, even queer was not enough and they wanted to add a plus sign, making the organization name: LGBTQ+. Queer has since even taken on a loftier essence, and can be found even in academia, where more and more schools now offer Queer Studies programs.
Without going into the details of historical development, many people in the trans community now find that transsexual carries the same onus as colored and homosexual, that it smacks of medicalization and is somehow demeaning. They prefer to use transgender (trans for short) exclusively as an umbrella term to cover what was previously understood by the separate terms transsexuals, cross-dressers, genderqueers, androgynous people, and gender non-conforming people. I will follow that practice here.
One more term is necessary, though:
cisgender (cis for short) refers to someone whose internal sense of gender corresponds with the sex the person was identified as having at birth. And it's nice to be back when the world was simpler and we can work with either/or categories.
Part II: Heartstopper - a review with commentary
Heartstopper is a teenage romance written by Alice Oseman and brought to the screen by Netflix: Season 1 in April 2022, Season 2 in August 2023, and Season 3, just now, in October 2024. Despite a plot line that sometimes goes a bit over-the-top (more kisses per square inch and more I love you's) it's a sweet romance clearly written to make the LGBT community feel warm and welcomed and maybe proud. It's an ensemble piece centered on sixteen year old Nick and fifteen-year-old Charlie and moves glacially slowly through three seasons of teenage angst starting with first attempts to come out, and ending with a mental health issue, specifically an eating disorder, in the third season, after passing through struggles with parental control, bullying, and whether to go to college and if so where. Mostly it's about kissing and partying and gossiping and self-doubt at an Olympic level.
I viewed the story through an old-man's eyes (these are the only eyes I have), stumbling at times over the extreme naiveté and having to remind myself these are just kids and what I'm calling naive can just as readily be called innocence - and sweetness. There isn't much "story" to the 24 episodes, 8 per season, exactly, other than the crushes and coming out tensions, who's going to ask who to be their girlfriend/boyfriend and when are they going to be ready to take kissing to the next level. Not a lot of surprises. Just kissing and more kissing.
Back in the old days I used to squirm at social realism. I saw it as kitsch. Cliché. Lack of artistic imagination. But I have a soft spot for people trying to make life better for LGBT people, and particularly the trans community, what with the ugly politicization they have to face these days from people trying to turn back the clock. OK, so the smoochie-smoochie was in-your-face excessive and the stereotypes were stereotypes. When you reach the end of the third season, you are relieved that Charlie (spoiler alert) has finally gotten over his fear of taking his shirt off in front of Nick. And there is something quite appealing about a bunch of kids who do absolutely everything collectively and make a point of being each other's support system.
The characters are Charlie (gay), Nick (bi), Elle (trans), Darcy and Tara (non-binary), Isaac (asexual and a-romantic). Additional characters are the resident homophobe, Harry, the teacher combo, Mr. Farouk and Mr. Ajayi; there's another trans character, Naomi, and three adult characters, an aunt, a grandmother, and a therapist, who are all super supportive. Haven't seen anything this gay-friendly since that wonderful film, Big Eden, where the character leaves New York and finds love in his Alaskan home town.
In the end, I love it that we are finally making queer love stories and putting queer characters in the starring roles. Kit Connor, who plays Nick, was forced to declare himself as
bi in real life a couple years ago - would prefer he had been allowed to do that in his own time, but given his role in making LGBT people more
salonfähig (fit for the salon), maybe that's no longer such a big deal. Joe Locke, who is from the Isle of Man, plays Charlie, as an out-and-proud gay man, came out to his mother at the age of twelve and is apparently
responsible for getting the British government to allow blood donations from gay men once more.
All things considered, despite my initial decision to pass this one up as being too much about teenage romance, i.e., not my farm; not my animals, I find myself hoping there will be a Season 4, hoping that Nick and Charlie are real and not just TV characters, and might actually get married. And will send me an invitation.
My suit is ready to go in for cleaning and pressing, my black shoes are polished and I am looking forward to a trip to London.
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